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109

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AN HISTORICAL REVIEW

OF THE PRINCIPAL

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN SITES

AT JERUSALEM.

MAJOR ERASER. R.E,

LONDON :
PUBLISHED BY EDWARD STANFORD, 55, CHARING CROSS.

1881.

Price One Shilling".

Ofr

AN HISTORICAL REVIEW

OF THE PHINCIPAL

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN SITES

AT JERUSALEM.

MAJOR FlIASER, R.E.

LONDON :

tUBLISliED BY EDWARD STANFORD, 55, CHARING CROSSv

1881.

AN HISTORICAL REVIEW

OF THE

PRINCIPAL JEWISH AND CHPJSTIAN
SITES AT JERUSALEM.

If an equal surface-projection of the earth's surface be
taken, Jerusalem will be found nearly, if not quite, at the
centre of the whole of the dry land on the globe. It also,
by the assenting homage of the great majority of the human
race, holds the same position in the universe of mundane
thought and destiny. Why this is the case, and in what
respects the site of this city differs from every other place
on the face of the earth, are unknown. Perhaps the only
other problem of the kind, though of far less importance
in comparison, is the exact situation of the Garden of
Eden. The earliest possessors of the site of Jerusalem
were the Jebusites, sprung from Canaan, the youngest son
of Ham, who appear to have been unaware of anything
except the strength of its position. Long before Jerusalem
became the city of the Jebusites, the faint breathing of
tradition speaks of a temple in the rock, with an entrance
by nine porches, and supported by two pillars with a per-
pendicular depth of eighty-one feet, in which was deposited
an equilateral triangle of gold enriched with precious

1—2

stones encrusted on an agate, and containing an all-powerful
name ; the whole reposing on a pedestal of white marble,
with which the name of Enoch is connected. Then suc-
ceeds a passing mention of Melchizedek, king of Salem and
also priest, and who must have lived about 1918 B.C. at
Jerusalem. Shortly after, Abram, I'esiding in Philistia,
went towards the land of Moriah, and saw the place at
which he was to sacrifice his son, on the third day, far off.
We are told he called the place " Jehovah Jireh," and that
it was in the Mount of God. It is commonly accepted to
have been upon the heights enclosed in the Haram Area.
Tradition goes that Shem, son of Noah, settled at Jerusalem,
and imparted specially important knowledge to Abram,
which, as he died about 1824 B.C., might easily have been
the case. The probability is that a priesthood was founded
by Melchizedek, which the patriarch then continued. But
there is a mere glimpse afforded at this period of an age
which has otherwise left its mark in the profound depths
of the immediate neighbourhood.

Then there succeeds another patriarchal system, the
Exodus, and the wanderings, and we have Jerusalem as-
signed 1444 B.C. to the tribe of Benjamin. Even in the
time of David the Jebusites had still their stronghold, not,
we may be sure, on the dry sides of the Haram position,
but opposite, on the declivity looking north-east, which
carries the modern town.

The slumbering importance of Mount Moriah was first
disclosed upon the pestilence succeeding the numbering of
the people. The angel stood, the sacrifice was offered, and
David made a purchase of the threshing-floor of Araunahi
To know that it was such a floor is no great help in deter-
mining the site. For threshing by oxen in the East, all that

is required is a fiat circle of rock or beaten earth, about a
dozen feet in diameter, the more sheltered the better if
there is a saddle or eminence close by, on which winnowino*
of the grain can take place. Solomon was divinely author-
ised to build the Temple, and the construction was manao-ed
with the assistance of Canaanitish hands. The Syrian
workmen were employed in the masonry, and Hiram,
a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali, and whose father
was of Tyre, superintended the brazen castings. In most
books taken up by chance, whether of history or sacred
topography, it will be found stated that Solomon's Temple
was built on the top of Mount Moriah, in the place where
now stands the Mosque of Omar. The locality is so plausible
at first sight, that it has been readily accepted, until now
it is most difficult to procure attention to the want of
evidence or proof upon which the statement rests. The
work was of great magnitude. Solomon raised a levy of
30,000 men from Israel,, and sent them 10,000 a month by
courses to Lebanon, to fell and transport timber, keepino-
a course two months at home. Adoniram was over the
levy. He had, including the Syrians, 70,000 people carry-
ing loads, and 80,000 masons under 3300 superintendents.
Immense hewn stones were prepared at the quarries, so
that no sound of iron tools could be heard during buildinof.
Josephus gives an account of Solomon's Temple (Ant.
b. viii. chap. iii. sec. 2), which has caused difficulty. But
it seems intelligible enough if the plain narration is followed.
He says, " The king laid the foundations of the Temple very
deep in the ground." To begin with, this cannot refer to
the site of the so-called Mosque of Omar, where there is
hard rock near the surface, and least occasion to dig deep.
The Temple must therefore have stood on some place where

there was a thickness of earth, and nearer the base than
the top of Moriah. The dimensions Josephns gives are :
height 60 cubits, length 60 cubits, and breadth 20 cubits,
to roof. There was another structure over it of equal
dimensions, so that the whole height was 120 cubits. There
was a porch 20 cubits long by 12 cubits wide, and the
same height as the Temple. The dimensions in feet would
of course depend upon whether the cubit of a man, some
18 inches, or the sacred cubit of 25*05 inches were adopted.
In the one case the height would be 21 8f feet, otherwise
250| feet. However, Solomon's Temple was at its first
appearance a tower of from 218 to 250 feet in total height,
built, as I believe, of two storeys, in the south-west
corner of the present Haram Area, and over that part of it
which has not been yet explored, but near which Julian the
Apostate's workmen came upon the globes of flame. Just
in front must have stood the threshing-floor of Araunah, on
which the altar was built. This explains how the porch
had such an altitude of 120 cubits. Little is known about
the arrangements of Solomon's Temple. There were upper
chambers inlaid with gold, no doubt for quasi-secular uses,
protected by the sanctity of the rooms of worship below.
It is most likely that the rest of the hill was irregularly
laid out; some of it stepped off" in terraces, other parts
built upon and filled up, while Josephus states (Ann., b.
XV. chap, ii.), " The hill was a rocky ascent that declined
by degrees to the east side of the city, till it came to an
elevated level. This hill Solomon had compassed with a
wall." The buildings must have looked singularly pictur-
esque, and were the expression of a new order of government
upon earth, but quite diflferent from the Temple and its
courts and palace at a later period. Solomon had, according

to Joseph US, encompassed the hill with a wall by divine
revelation, and this no doubt equally guided the position of
the Temple foundations. A great expense was incurred in
laying these, which might have been easily saved by moving
some yards away ; but the place was chosen with an object,
with which we are not directly made aware.

Solomon's Temple lasted till the captivity took place,
588 B.C., under Nebuchadnezzar, when the Chaldeans broke
up the fine castings made by Hiram, and took the vessels of
the Temple to Babylon. They burnt the house of Jehovah,
brake down the walls of Jerusalem, and destroyed the
palaces and goodly contents, carrying off' the treasures. It
may be easily understood that a temple in the form of a
lofty tower would, when once it fell into the possession of
the Babylonians, lined as it was with cedar, burn like a
furnace_, and be soon reduced to complete ruin.

So the city and Temple remained till 536 B.C., when the
spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, was stirred to proclaim the
rebuilding of the house of the Lord ; and we are told the
people gathered themselves together as one man to Jeru-
salem. The same process had to be gone through as at the
oriojinal instauration. Jeshua and Zerubbabel were over the
work, Syrians again brought timber from Lebanon, and
masons and carpenters were employed by the Levites. There
was no question regarding the site on this occasion ; because
the priests and ancients had seen Solomon's Temple standing.
The decree of Cyrus contained the specification for the
Temple, but the Temple was actually built under Darius, who
found the decree of Cyrus in the house of the Eolls. The
expense was originally to have been defrayed by the king's
treasury. There is no certainty that the limits prescribed
by Cyrus were not exceeded, for the people helped the

work, and the restoration of the walls of the city was
divided amongst the leaders. Probably the Temple of
Zerubbabel was a close reproduction of that of Solomon,
then fresh in recollection. Hasty work or defective orna-
mentation was remedied about 301 B.C., when Simon, the
high -priest in the reign of Ptolemy Lagus, added to the
walls of Jerusalem.

In 168 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanes profaned and despoiled
the Temple, but did not destroy it, and its worship
and influence were restored by Judas Maccabseus. The
Jewish polity continued unbroken within the Temple
enclosure under the Asmonean princes, until, the throne
being vacant, the Pharisees proposed one candidate and the
army another.

A conflict followed, and the Romans interfered. Pompey
decided in favour of Hyrcanus II., the candidate of the
Pharisees, and in 63 B.C. captured Jerusalem. Josephus
narrates (" Wars," book i. chap, vii.) : " Pompey saw the
walls were firm, the valley before the walls terrible ; the
Temple which was within that valley was encompassed
with a very strong wall, so that if the city were taken the
Temple would be a second place of refuge for the enemy to
retire into." If this passage is read backwards it conveys a
clearer meaning, because this order goes from the abstract to
the concrete. The Temple was a second refuge if the city
were taken ; it had a strong wall ; the Temple was within a
valley (the Tyropoeon and not on the top of Mount Moriah),
and the valley to the south of the Temple and city walls
terrible then, as is the case now, but more conspicuously so
because not filled with rubbish. Josephus proceeds : '* Aris-
tobulus's party retired into the Temple, and cut off" the
communication between the Temple and city, by breaking

down the bridge that joined them together. Bat Pompey
himself filled up the ditch that was on the north side of the
Temple, and the entire valley also." For an explanation of
this passage we have only to turn to Wilson and Warren's
" Recovery of Jerusalem." The remains of this bridge exist
to the present hour. No one can also look at the longi-
tudinal section of the Haram Area from south to north
without recognising the hollow which is now partly closed
with earth, and in part occupied by the pool of Eethesda,
as the ditch on the north side to which Josephus refers. It
was, of course, not of the full section all through, but con-
nected itself with the head of the Tyropoeon valley by a
depressed saddle, if not by a steep artificial cut. When
the Temple was taken, Pompey entered the Holy of Holies,
and it was remarked that from this time he ceased to be
successful. But he rifled none of the treasure, and cleansins"
the Temple, directed the resumption of its services. Crassus,
the prefect of Syria, was in 51 B.C. not so moderate. He
plundered the wealth that Pompey left untouched, stated
to have amounted to two millions sterling. The defeat of
Crassus by the Parthians hastened the strife between Csesar
and Pompey ; the Rubicon was crossed, and the defeat at
Pharsalia ended the consulate.

On the ides (15th) of March, 44 B.C., Julius Csesar came
by his tragic death. The year before he had attained, in all
except name, absolute sovereignty over the Roman Empire,
and had just convened a meeting of the Senate to obtain
the imperial title. The conspiracy against him was an out-
burst of suppressed republican feeling, and for some time the
government was conducted by the joint presidency of
Augustus and Antony. The battle of Philippi, 42 B.C.,
ended republicanism in Rome, and confirmed their authority.

With his colleague's consent, Antony, 40 B.C., made Herod
king of Judea. Antipas, the grandfather of Herod, was an
Idumean, and governor of Idumea under Jannseus ; who,
being a Sadducee, was opposed by the rival Jewish faction*
The support of the Pharisees contributed to the elevation of
an Idumean over Jerusalem, and the sceptre departed from
Judah. It has never been clearly related how the gap oc-
curred that made way for Herod's Temple. That of Zerub-
babel emerges with apparently a fabric in material respects
undamaged, after attack and pillage on these several occa-
sions, and there is no distinct record of Herod having found
a mere heap of ruined buildings to invite restoration. To
trace the condition of Zerubbabel's Temple, it is necessary
to go back to 168 B.C., when Antiochus Epiphanes caused
the discontinuance of the daily sacrifice. At that period
(1 Mac. i.) " her sanctuary was laid waste like a wilderness ;*'
but this may not imply more than removal of the Jewish
ornaments and a dismantling of the interior. But the
orders of Antiochus were " that they should follow laws
strange to the land ;" the religion of the Jews was sup-
pressed, " overseers were appointed over the people," the
Temple of Jerusalem was dedicated to Jupiter, an image set
up, and sacrifices offered on a new altar. It was the practice
to erect the altars for such strange rites upon the tops
rather than sides of hills, and the description given in
1 Mace. iv. of the condition of the Temple when Judas Mac-
cabseus proceeded to cleanse it, "all the host assembled
themselves together and went up into Mount Sion. And
they saw the sanctuary desolate, and the altar profaned,
and the gates burnt down, and shrubs growing in the
courts as in a forest or in one of the mountains, yea, and the
priests' chambers pulled down," is inconsistent with the de-

corous cult even of Olympian Jupiter, The altar of the
Jews rendered unclean, the Temple was deserted ; and if a
shrine were not built, the summit of Moriah can neverthe-
less be conceived smoking with unblessed fires.

Towards the close of 165 B.C. the stones were clinked to-
gether, the Jews rekindled their daily sacrifice on a fresh
altar, and Judas Maccab?ous fortified the Temple, after
having built up the sanctuary and the inner parts of the
house. The celebration of the event lasted eight days, and
was annually repeated as the feast of the dedication, even
in the Temple of Herod. The Maccabsean rulers added to
the fortifications of Jerusalem, and national freedom was
restored under Simon, in 143 B.C., high-priest, governor and
leader of the Jews. A rather remarkable passage with re-
ference to him occurs in 1 Mac. xiv. : " For in his days
things prospered in his hands, so that the heathen were
taken out of their country, and they also which were in the
city of David in Jerusalem, who had made themselves a
tower, out of which they issued and polluted all about the
sanctuary, and did much hurt in the holy places; but he
placed Jews therein, and fortified it for the safety of the
country and the city, and raised up the walls of Jerusalem."
As Simon is narrated to have raised a stronghold near the
Temple for his own residence, which after became the tower
of An tenia, it is not at all improbable that the position was
at any rate thus marked by the tower of the heathen in the
city of David, which must have closely adjoined.

In 109 B.C. Hyrcanus, Simon's son, built the Castle Baris^
a fortress on the north-west corner of the Temple courts,
square in shape, and which was afterwards expanded into
the Tower Antonio. The history of Zerubbabel's Temple is,
up to this point, epitomised by Milton :

" Returned from Babylon by leave of^ kings,
Their lords whom God disposed, the house of God
They first re-edify ; and for awhile
In mean estate live moderate ; till grown
In wealth and multitude, factious they grow ;
But first among the priests dissension springs,
Men who attend the altar, and should most
Endeavour peace : their strife pollution brings
Upon the temple itself ; at last they seize
The sceptre, and regard not David's sons ;
Then lose it to a stranger."

Nothing is stated with regard to the condition of this
Temple between 109 B.C. and 17 B.C., when Herod com-
menced the more splendid edifice, which has sunk in a more
profound oblivion. But it may be readily conjectured that
a building completed 515 B.C., gutted in 168 B.C., hastily re-
habilitated three years afterwards, and of whose repairs
nothing is heard after 109 B.C., had grown dilapidated and
unsuitable by 37 B.C., when Herod entered upon his govern-
ment. Being an Idumean, he could not hold the office of
high-priest ; but he could give a permanent tone to the
mode of conducting the services of the Jews by causing the
erection of a new Temple. It is evident the old struc-
ture was still existing, because the Jews expressed a fear
that if he pulled it down they would have none in its place;
but Herod gave a pledge that he would not begin demolition
till materials had been collected. Josephus describes
Herod's procedure in building the new Temple in a way
that is easily followed (Ant. b. xv., chap, ii.) : '* Herod took
av/ay the old foundations and laid others, and erected the
Temple there, 100 cubits long and 20 cubits highj which fell
down on the sinking of their foundation." It is incredible
that this construction was on the hard crown of Moriah
where the Dome of the Rock now stands. It must have

been on much lower and far more slippery ground. Josephus
proceeds : " Temple stones were white and strong, 25 cubits
lonor, 8 cubits h\crh, and 12 cubits broad." ''The whole
structure, as also the structure of the Koyal Cloister, was on
each side much lower, but the middle was much higher, till
visible to those living in the country for a great many fur-
longs, but chiefly to those who lived opposite." It will be
found on referring to the photographs of the Ordnance Sur-
vey of Jerusalem, that if Herod's Temple be assigned to a
position south of the Sakhra, it must have been very con-
spicuous from the north and west sides of Jerusalem, and in
the most advantageous grouping with the spread of the city,
when viewed across the valley from the east, or over the
Tyropoeon from the roofs and windows of the town.
Josephus continues : " The neck was rocky, anticlinal,
quietly slanted with (irpo^) the eastern members of the city
to a summit point. This ridge Solomon had compassed
with a wall," or in Greek, with interlinear translation :

" Toviov 6 TTfjooTO^ rjfxwv /SaaiXev^ SaXo/Mcov
This, the foremost of us King Solomon,
Ka(, eiTicppoavvTji/ rov Oeov ixe^akai^ 6pya(Tiai<;
and the wise plan of God, with great operations,
aireTeL')(^i,^6v avwOev ra nrepi ttjv afcpav
walled off, to be above those round the summit."

The passage has given rise to uncertainty whether in
what follows Josephus is not recounting the dimensions of
Solomon's Temple ; but it is evidently a parenthesis, and
Josephus resumes the doings of Herod. When the wording
however is closely examined, it is very applicable to the
tower-temple built by Solomon, from a low site in the

south-west corner of the Haram Area, so high as to over-
look the crown of the ridge.

As to Herod, " He also built a wall till the largeness
of the square edifice was immense, and its altitude :

he walled over also from below under the spur that com-
manded, etc." The term, an immense square edifice, cannot
relate to Solomon^s Temple, whose dimensions and mode of
construction were, as described, very different. Josephus
continues : ''This work was joined together as part of the
hill itself to the very top ; he made it level on the external
surface, and a smooth level also. This hill was walled all
round and in compass four stadia, the distance of each angle
containing a stadium (or 604*85 feet)." Then in Greek :

" E(TC0T6pci) 8e TOVTov Kat irap avrrjv ttjv ai<pav,
Within also it, and towards the very summit,
oXKo TeL-)(p^ avd) XlOcvov irepiOei,, Kara fiev
another wall tier of stone runs round, on in fact

ecoav pax^^ '^^^ ^^^X'^^) ^^^^ '^V'^ '^P^ tovtwv

the east slope of the walls, and fronting these
^apayya cj^ofiepav to re cepov et'To? t?;? (papajyo^;.
a hiatus formidable, and the Temple within the hiatus.
AvTo 6e KaTa to ivpoaapiCTtov t<\i/jLa ttjv tov
That also on the northern incline on that of the

Ta(f)pov e%oi; Kat, ttjv ^apayya iraaav vXrjv

sepulchre he heaped, and the entire hiatus material

(TVfX(popOV(TaV T7]^ hvpa/jL6co^.

brought by the labour.

The meaning of this somewhat involved passage seems
to be that Herod, dealing with the same features of the
ground as Solomon, began to build an immense square re-

vetement, just to south-west of the Sakhra, then probably
clad with soil, and barely showing above the surface. It
was carried up some height, perhaps eighty feet, at one
corner, where there was a string-course, or some mural line;
and then came a second tier of walls, the interior, about
600 feet square, being at first, while the work was in
progress, a vast hiatus. In the middle of this the Temple
foundations were relaid, and the superstructure brought up
to the level of the revetement outside, in the seclusion that
was desirable for building not only the sanctuary, but the
treasure-house of the nation. There appears to have been
a place of sepulture on the north, on which, and within the
walled limits, he naturally deposited the materials while the
work was in progress. The revetement was made not to
join on to the top of Moriah, but so solid as to resemble the
rock itself right up to the top of the v/alls; and on the
north was built a citadel square and strong.

In this way Herod's Temple foundation stood out a square
and protected block of masonry, in the most picturesque spot
that could have been chosen on Zion; and the Temple itself
stood with its cloisters and courts on this basement, indica-
tive of a centre for the Jewish polity that was originall^T"
marked, not by the summit of the ridge, but by divine
command. The sections which are given of the Haram Area
in the '* Recovery of Jerusalem," impart the idea that the
basement of Herod's Temple was of a greater height than
generally supposed ; for the shingle which now fills up the
old bed of the Kedron, and half obliterates the Tyropoeon
Valley on the opposite side, has evidently been poured or
drawn down from a higher level, or from being, in fact,
much of it at one time the filling of the basement of the
terrace. Before the invention of gunpowder, a steep

Cyclopean square of masonry, 150 feet in average eleva-
tion, would have presented a nearly insuperable obstacle
to attack, from an enemy operating in a mountainous
country, possessing few supplies. The north was the
feeblest side; but the summit of Moriah, evidently from
Ezekiel (xliii. 7, 8) a remarkable passage, contained the
burial-place of the kings, and was in close connection with
the Temple, perhaps joined by a terrace ; and the whole of
the open space to the north was elaborately defended by sets
of walls. It would not be difficult, in a model of the city of
David and hill of Zion, to reproduce the entire system of
the Temple and outworks from the elaborate information
accumulated by the Ordnance Survey, and the researches of
Mr. James Fergusson and others, with some approach to
fidelity. But this work, although admirably attempted,
cannot be said to have been yet conclusively accomplished.
Upon the supposition that the area of the Temple mea-
sured a stadium, or 604'35 feet, and that the cubit of
Josephus and the Talmud was 1.824 feet, the cubit of a man
of Deut. iii. 11, the ground-plan minutely worked out by
Mr. Fergusson leaves little to be desired in the present state
of the question. It brings the holy of holies, and the altar^
opposite where the Jews to this day congregate to bewail
the misfortunes of their tribes, and the alienation of their
holy house. Antonia is placed at the north-east corner,
projecting half out, and half inside^ the Temple wall, and
continued in its outbuildings, over the ruins discovered by
Captain Warren. But the position of the tower is open to
the objection that its demolition would not exactly fit the
weird tradition that the Temple was not to be taken till it
became four square. Tiie Antonia was an old tower already
built when the foundations of Herod's Temple were being

laid ; and it is unlikely that the massive revetements would
be cut short, and abut against an old wall, but more reason-
able to suppose that the Antonia was itself built against in
such a manner, tliat the Temple really stood out square
when the tower was demolished. The point is, however, of
minor importance. A very symmetrical restoration of the
ground-plan of the Temple of Herod is contained in the
finely-executed work of the Marquis de Vogue. The induce-
ment to place the altar of the Jews on the top of the Sakhra
arises from a difficulty experienced in rejecting the Golden
Gateway as being connected with the Temple, its principal
entrance, and beautiful gate. The authorisation is a some-
what vague passage in Josephus, "Wars," i. chap. 21, 1 :

Top vaov eireavevaae kul ttjv irepi avTov aveTet^taaro
The temple he heaped, and round this walled

'^oopav T7?9 ovdT]'^ SiirXaaiav.

a space of what was, the double.

There is no way of determining the exact limits of the
walled enclosure which Herod doubled.

From such account as we possess of Zerubbabel's Temple,
the actual court must have been of irregular outline, be-
cause on sloping ground ; and as the area of a figure nearly
four-sided is as the square of the side, 420 feet increased to
600 feet would give the requisite double space, and at the
same time aftbrd the widest extent that could be reasonably
claimed for the Temple of Zerubbabel. The plan, as restored
by De Yogue, has undeniable nobility of conception, and
thorough command of the key of the position. But if eleva-
tions were drawn, and still more in perspective view, the
Haram constructions of Herod's time form a feeble group
spread over such a wide area as the walled enclosure which

De Vogue assumes. There were also several walls defend-
ing the ground immediately adjacent to the northern side
of the Temple, and it is therefore not quite certain to
what exterior limits Josephus referred. Question on the
matter seems to arise, more than anything, from the com-
plete absence of any visible mark of the spot on which
the altar stood. There is an unrestinc: feelino; of oblio^ation
to find in the Haram Area some indication of the kind, and
the prominent feature of the Sakhra is seized for want of
better. But there is nothinsf in the conditions of the altar
to connect its position with any extruding peak. It had its
origin in the sacrificial heap raised on a threshing-floor. For
the purposes of the Temple an elevated base had to be built
83 cubits, or about 60 feet square; and if Josephus's numbers
be taken rising 24 feet above the level of the threshing-floor,
with the real altar of unhewn stones some 3 feet more,
and almost 22 feet square. There was a drain, according to
the Talmud, which carried the blood of the sacrifices away
from the top of the base to the Kedron. But there was no
indisputable natural feature to denote the site, except such
as attaches necessarily to the threshing-floor of Araunah.
The altar site is a point in the Temple area to be indirectly
fixed, rather than by referring, except collaterally, to the
face of the rock. It is by no means certain that in the
vicissitudes the Temple and Mount Zion underwent before
the time of Herod, sacrifices of a different kind to those of
the Levitical law had not been offered upon a high place,
and a desecrated altar. The fa9ade of Herod^s Temple pre-
sents more difficulty than the ground-plan. Josephus seems
grossly to exaggerate the heights; and yet it is undesirable
to reject the measurements of an eye-witness of the edifice
for those of the rabbis of the Talmud. In preparing eleva-

tions to test the imperfect description of Joseph us, it is
necessary to prepare some sort of probable cross-section,
and to do this sections are required to a natural scale of the
surface of the Haram Area at the level at which the founda-
tions were laid b}^ Herod. One is wanted longitudinally
through the Huldah Gate, north and south ; and the other
at right angles to this, or from the modern town to the
Kedron, nearly across the wailing-place of the Jews. The
last-named is of course not at present obtainable, and the
exact conformation of the rock is a matter of absolute con-
jecture. But if the information were procurable, the revete-
ments would have first to be laid down their 600 feet square,
as it was already described Herod built them, recollecting
that from the rubbish accumulated, the platform containing
the Stoa Basilica and the principal courts was in all likeli-
hood quite as high as, and for some part of the north en-
virons detached from, the Sakhra. It was made soil within
the Temple enclosure, and natural ground for the most part
outside. While attempting to restore the design of the
Temple itself, the heights would have to be reckoned from
the low level of the hillside, and not from the platform
formed by filling up the interior of the square. This mode
of proceeding gives ample scope as far as height is con-
cerned. A crypt, with store and treasure rooms, is at once
suggested. Then the storeys of chambers can be arranged
in tiers so as to make a priest's cell 11 or 12 feet high, or at
most 17|^ feet, unless there is some other mode of arrange-
ment. For the offices of the Temple, many may well have
been in a sunk court running round three sides of the
central building, with the several courts rising in a grada-
tion that must be determined with reference to the level of
the altar, which stood a few feet comparatively above the

2—2

environing terrace upon the south side of which the Corin-
thian columns of the Stoa Basilica displayed their arresting
splendour. In form the facade of the Temple may have
borne a resemblance to Mr. Fergusson's elaborate reproduc-
tion in his " Temples of the Jews." The roof had perhaps
even a higher pitch, and either partially or wholly gilt would
have been ablaze in the morning and evening sun. Reach-
ing, as it appears to have done, from ground to roof, the
porch must have formed a special feature, disclosing through
its hangings some of the magnificence of* the interior. The
whole edifice may have had also a specific Jewish character,
denoting the Temple to be a national monument.

The turning-point in Jewish history was now reached,
and the Temple and its sacrificial rites were superseded by
the Christian dispensation. It is memorable that the accu-
sation preferred against our Lord was on the subject of the
Temple, and making nothing of this, the high-priest directed
the final personal inquiry, Sv a 6 XplaTo^j 6 vto^ tov
ivXoyrjTov, and obtained the plain answer, and a prediction
that is yet unfulfilled. At that time doubtless Moriah was
better covered with soil, and all to the north of the Temple
wall was in part laid out in gardens, and much of it an open
green. The whole Haram Area was probably enclosed with
a wall sufficiently high to protect the Temple, but by no
means so loftj^ as the square revetement. There was access
from the town to the country past the Antonia and across
the Haram Area to a gateway that may be supposed to have
stood on the foundations of the existing Golden Gate. The
scene of the Crucifixion must, then, have been without the
gate and tlierefore it is likely at no great distance from its
eastern face. The ground is now so much altered that it is
impossible to infer from the mere surface appearance what

was the situation of Golgotha. If it can be shown that
the old wall at Jerusalem bent at right angles, following the
street which sharply marks such a course on the modern
map, it is just as easy to place Golgotha where it is shown
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but that the tomb
prepared by Joseph of Arimathea for himself shoiald have
been just opposite and within 190 feet of the place of public
execution is difficult to credit. There is perhaps no regret
so poignant as that caused by the discovery that extremities
have been proceeded to under a mistake. The leaders of the
Jews found themselves only opposed by the feeble resist-
ance of matter to the infinite when they had expected super-
natural strength ; the tie was severed, and their national
welfare for ages shattered. Herod's Temple was a silent
witness of the rash attempt which left its lesson to be the
strength of Christendom, and the most formidable scientific
problem that concerns the race of man unsolved. The
Temple continued to rally round it the expiring forces of
Judaism^ and the holy places to the present time involve more
in their mere situation than at first sight appears. Eevolt-
ing against the oppression of the Romans, with hopes from
the befriending aid that audibly left the Temple of Herod
for ever, the Jews were besieged in 70 A.D. by Titus^ and
the building was consumed by fire.

The popular impression that the rituals of the Eomans
were in honour of creations of a childish imagination, can
only be held by those unacquainted with the bearings of
the subject. There can be little question that some at least
of the sites on Mount Moriah, either the altar of Abraham
or that of David, and the sites of the three temples, those of
Herod, Zerubbabel, and Solomon, had an interest for the
Pontifex Maximus and the Romans. Their power held the

Haram Area, as the Turks do at the present moment, against
dreaded opposition. The Jewish tradition (Allen's " Modern
Judaism") is that the descendants of Esau spread from Seir,
and, increasing in numbers after the Assyrians and Baby-
lonians had overthrown the republic of the twelve tribes,
passed over and subjugated Italy, founded Rome, and, re-
crossing under Titus, destroyed the Temple. From the
number of Jews in the neighbourhood of the Holy City in
the time of Hadrian, lol A.D., it is certain that the Romans
were satisfied, so long as they garrisoned the Haram, and
prevented them rebuilding their Temple. They no doubt
lived and traded in the opposite city, while the Christians
were growing into a compact body in unobserved retreats
amongst them, under the protection of Roman impartiality.
Hadrian had been initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries at
Athens, and gave orders for the rebuilding of Jerusalem as
-^lia Capitolina. The consequence was an insurrection of
the Jews, which was put down ; and their race was entirely
banished from Jerusalem. " Ubi quondam erat templum et
religio Dei, ibi Hadriani statua et Jovis idolum collocatum
est." (Valerius, vol. iv. p. 37.)

Such was the state of the Haram Area in 136 A.D. The
attention of Hadrian was drawn to the Jews, while he
tolerated the Christians. It was an obvious measure of
safe policy to supplant the Temple worship by the Roman
rites ; and symbolise in the two statues the combined pon-
tifical and imperial power. But it is almost certain that
the Sakhra, held afterwards in so rooted a veneration, would
have at that time commanded some regard. In the absence
of a specific account it is to be presumed that the oriental
inhabitants, nominally Christian, maintained its historic

sanctity by at least some formal enclosure ; and that they
had one or more places in the town for their religious cele-
brations and worship. But there were many Jews amonoj
the Christians ; and a suspicion of Judaism began to attack,
if it did not actually invade, the Christian body. The
Church of Jerusalem split up, in 150 A.D., into Christians
and Nazarenes. The Nazarenes were mere Jews, except
that they believed in Christ. We lose sight all this time of
the sect of the Essenes, who no doubt, with others of kindred
opinions, kept alive many of the traditions connected in-
separably with the contents and situation of the Haram
Area,

The pressure of Christianity was felt by the emperors in
their pontifical seats, and gave rise to persecutions, the
records of which are fragmentary and dissatisfying. Under
Severus, Maximin, and Valerian, the Christians experienced
interdict and massacre. But the invasion of his family by
the proscribed doctrine evoked a curious edict of Diocletian,
282 A.D., for the suppression of the Christians and the de-
molition of their churches ; a process which Galerius con-
tinued in the East. The probability is that it was at this
time the temple of Venus was erected over the site of the
Holy Sepulchre, and the tomb itself obliterated from the
rock. " It appears from the earliest age of Christianity,"
observes De Vogue, "Les Eglises de la Sainte Terre," *' that
there existed a number of edifices consecrated to the Holy
Mysteries. It is evident that these modest chapels were
concealed with care, and were plain oratories over the holy
places. History mentions them not, only talks of the temples
of Venus and Adonis, which for two centuries fixed the place
of Goliiotha and Bethlehem."

The mention of Diocletian brings us down toConstantine.

They were contemporary, and also correspondents. Learn-
ing the nearness of the invisible, Constantine was at com-
plete variance with Diocletian in his opinion of Christianity.
He wrote in the following strain to Diocletian :

' AWa TO [lev TvaOrjiJia tKeivov viro tcov Trpo^Tjriov tJBt]

7rpOK6fC7]pVKTO Se KoX 7] (JCD/JLaTiKTJ y6VV7]aL<; aVTOV.

''And Babylon will be wasted, says the prophet, and
Memphis lies in ruins ; not by missiles but by prayer."

The burning question of the Temple, but not that made
with hands, naturally reappeared, in a simple and unin-
formed age, to agitate the Church. Quite beside the
articles of faith, in its kind a profound, but from any other
point of view superfluous, question of science, sects arose,
from the impossibility of explaining the physical facts
attending the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension
of Jesus Christ. To be in a position to do this, the mind
would have to form an idea and explain the conditions of
physical existence. But early Christendom attempted a
task for which they had not acquired the scientific data,
and, stumbling here and there upon an ill-expressed truth —
for the analytical grasp of the human intellect often goes
beyond ascertained facts — divided irreconcilably upon the
scientific question. According to Neander, there were at
first two theological systems in the Church. One was
theistic in tendency, which distinguished the Son of God
from all created beings, and maintained what is termed the
" unity of essence." This became the system of the Western
Empire, and practically supported the principle of monarchy
in civil government. In the East the " unity of essence"
was combated, and a theory of ''emanation" propounded;
so as to make a greater distinction between the personality
of God and the Son of God. It would in the present state

of knowledge be next to impossible to give a clear definition
of such deep elementary principles, even if possessed by the
originators of the controversy, which they were not. Dif-
ficulties were increased by the doctrines of Arianism, a third
view of the same question. Arius was educated by Lucian
at Antioch. He appears to have rejected the theory of
" eternal generation," and would not accept a difference
between a generation from God and the notion of a creation.
In 321 A.D., Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, excommuni-
cated Arius ; but Eusebius was an old friend, and inclined
to agree with him in doctrine. Constantino succeeding to
power in 324 A.D., found the Arian schism^ regretted it,
and determined to unite all his subjects in one worship.
His words were, " irepi fxev ovv rrj^ Oeia^ 7rpovoia<; fiia tl^; eu
vfjLLv 6<jTco 7r/crT(9." But his attempts to reconcile Alexander
and Arius failed, and a serious semi-political movement
broke out in Egypt between the Arian and Melitian party.
Constantino was puzzled how to act. He sided with
Alexander on the subject of the " unit}^ of essence ;" but the
orientals objected that the doctrine gave occasion for sensu-
ous representations. He summoned the Council of Nice,
325 A.D., who as well as they could embodied the orthodox
belief in the Nicene Creed. Constantino deeming the Arian
tenets subversive of Chris tianit}", used all the expedients
of Byzantine despotism in suppression; he banished first
Arius, and then Eusebius.

It would be strange if no impress of these distracting
controversies by three powerful sections was left on the
holy places at Jerusalem ; surprising if there alone they
could unite on points which elsewhere defied the streno-th
of the Eastern Empire. The traces were left ; and it is not
easy to account for two distinct sites for the Holy Sepulchre,

one in the heart of the town, and tlie other on the Haram
Area, without going back to the origin of these rifts in
Christendom. It was as part of Constantine's scheme of uni-
fication of public worship, that he resolved to erect basilicas
and memorials over the sacred sites. The Empress Helena
went over to Palestine, and Constantine entered upon the
operations at Jerusalem 326 A.D. Neander observes that,
" Nothing certain is known with regard to the relations
between Helena and her son as to this matter." But any-
one who will examine such records as exist, will find that
there was a complete divergence in their sentiments; and
that the influences under which empress and son acted were
wholly different.

Constantine's brother-in-law, Licinius, was a pagan, who
however assumed the direction of Christian ritual in his
part of the empire. He was the first who divided males
and females in Christian congregations. Constantine, on the
other hand, destroyed the pagan shrines. Among the ladies
of Constantine's family there was a strong disposition to
favour Arius. By their intercession Eusebius was restored
to place in 327 A.D., and Arius was received two years later.
Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria at the time, was peremp-
torily commanded on pain of exile to ratify the measure.
There is other confirmatory evidence of a genuine difference
between the objects of Helena and Constantine. Doubts
have been expressed regarding the correspondence, and
there is no detailed account of what the empress did from
first to last when at Jerusalem. Eusebius has a mere para-
graph (" Vita," lib. iii., cap. xlii.), " For when she had de-
cided to perform the office of pious affection due to Almighty
God, both on behalf of her exalted son emperor to wit, and
on behoof of her sons the Csesars, dear to God, when she

had charged her grandchildren that they should pray with
supplications, although already of advanced age, yet with
juvenile mind, she, a woman of rare shrewdness, hastened
to travel through the land worthy of veneration; and she
visited the provinces of the East, and the cities, and people,
with an almost regal solicitude and preparation. But after
she revered, with appropriate worship, the steps of our
Saviour, according as the prophetic declaration had of old
predicted, ' Adoremus in loco ubi steterunt pedes ejus,'
forthwith also left the fruit of her piety to her descend-
ants ' (xliii.) ; " For she immediately dedicated two temples,
one at the cave in which the Lord was born, the other in
that mount from which He had ascended to heaven." There
is no mention of Helena having built any Church of the
Resurrection, but at the same time it is a matter of un-
certainty on what mount she founded the Church of the
Ascension ; because a little farther on in the same chapter
(xliii.), Eusebius says : '' Besides that of the Ascension of
the Saviour of all to heaven, the mother of the emperor
raised a memorial, with lohy constructions, upon the
Mount of Olives, erecting the holy house of the church and
a temple over the summit of the whole mountain." The
ascension is known not to have taken place from the top of
the Mount of Olives, so that Helena cannot have been
accurately guided, if that event was commemorated by the
church and temple.

The Church of the Kesurrection, however, was taken in
hand by Constantine himself, whose writings show that he
was as accurately informed on every point of Gospel
history as at this day we can be ourselves. He had
evidently experienced a difficulty in ascertaining the proper
site, but without having the communication in which the

invention of the cross, or perhaps more correctly the iden-
tification or indication of the scene of the passion of our
Lord, was described, it would be impossible to sa}^ if the
emperor relied upon the miracle when ordering the con-
struction of the Martyrium. The rescript to Macarius,
Bishop of Jerusalem at the time, is worth quoting :

" The Victor Constantine the Great and Worshipful to
Macarius.

"So great is the grace of our Saviour, that no abund-
ance of speech seems adequate to the narration of the
present miracle. For the indication of that sacred passion,
till now hid for such a long space of years under ground,
through the base enemy of all, till its removal^ to have
appeared bright to the servants freed of it, really exceeds all
admiration. For if all who have ever been considered wise
on earth had been collected into one and this place, should
wisli to say anything worthy of this deed, they would not
seem to me able to rival the least part of it. For the
repute of the miracle as much surpasses as human divine
things. "Wherefore this is alone and especially my sole
aim, that, just as the faith of the truth is daily exhibited
with new wonders, so also our minds may be incited to
observance of the most sacred law with all modesty and
concordant alacrity. And because I think it manifest to
all, and I wish that to be particularly credited, how it con-
cerns me most of all, that the yery holy spot, which by
the providence of God I have relieved from the basest ac-
companiments of an idol, as if from a superincumbent
weight, which had been holy from the beginning by the
judgment of God, and has been manifested more holy from
when the evidence of our Saviour's passion has been brought

to light, we should adorn with the beauty of buildings. It
becomes therefore your acumen that you should so arrange
and care for the things necessary for the work, that not
only should the Basilica be better than any everywhere,
but that the rest be such that all the fairest things of
the kind in other towns may be distanced. And concern-
inor the raisinor of the walls and adornment, to Dracilianus
our friend, ruling the sections of the most important pro-
vinces, and to the Archon of the province, the care has
been entrusted by us. For it has been ordered by our
piety that workmen, and artificers, and all needed to
obtain for the building, advised b}" your discretion, should
through their foresight immediately be sent. However,
regarding the marble columns you may think to be most
valuable and useful, their synopsis drawn, hasten to write
to us. That as many and of what sort through your letter
we may know necessary, these can be passed over from all
quarters. And the vault of the Basilica, whether fretted, or
it strikes you should be by any other work, 1 wish to be
told from you. For if you would prefer a fretted roof, it
can be embellished with gold. The rest thy holiness will
make known quickly to those foresaid judges, and how
much labour, artisans, and treasury money ; and that you
may refer to me direct not only concerning the marbles
and columns, but those things concerning the frets, if you
think this work should be more splendid. May God pre-
serve you, loved brother."

As Eusebius is so silent with regard to the circumstances
of Helena's pilgrimage, it is useful to turn to any light, how-
ever dim, that other authors can throw.

Sozomen lived about 400 A.D., or seventy odd years after

the erection of the Basilica. He says Helena tried to find
the Holy Sepulchre. It was no easy matter. The Greeks,
who at the first promulgation of Christianity tried to exter-
minate it, heaped up mounds of earth on the holy places,
and had enclosed the place of the resurrection and Mount
Calvary within a wall, and had ornamented the whole
locality and paved it with stone. A temple and statue
(^codtov, little animal) to Yenus had also been erected on the
same spot by these people, that the true cause of worship
might be forgotten, and that the temple and statue would
come to be regarded as exclusively appertaining to the Greeks.
At length the secret was discovered, some say by a Jew.
When the place was excavated the cave was discovered, and
at no great distance crosses. Constantino erected a temple.
Helena also erected two. Such is the substance of the nar-
rative of Sozomen. A decided line is drawn between the
structures erected by Helena and the emperor, agreeing
with Eusebius, but supplying a few particulars in which his
account is deficient. Abulfeda (" Hist. Ante Islam") who
lived 1200 a.d., is another authority, a Mohammedan view-
ing history from his own standpoint. He writes : " Urbs
Hierosolymorum a Tito vastata instaurari coepit. Aliquis
Imperatorum Romanorum ei operam dedit. Eam ^iiam
appellari jussit quod significat domum Domini; eam res -
tauravit et sedificia collapsa rearsit Haec tertia urbis in-
staurata3 etas ad illud pertinet, quo Helena crucem
qusesitura eo venit. Tunc enim sepulchro in quo christum
jacuisse existimant ecclesiam quoe Kumamah vocatur super-
struxit, templum solo cosequavit, ct in loco quo steterat,
urbis purgamenta et sordes conjici jussit. Ita locus es
Sakhne (Sacri Saxi in quo Jacobus dominus caput de-
posuisse dicitur) in sterquilinium conversus est. Sed," etc.

This is exactly what would be done under Constantine's
orders, whose intention was to unify public worship, and
obliterate any remnants from the Jewish ritual ; although,
had the emperor ever gone to Jerusalem, his taste -svould
hardly have permitted the Temple site to be more than
levelled. But the sentence last quoted reads against the
theory that the Sepulchre Church of the Kumamah was
near the Sakhra. Looking more closely at the quotation, it
will be seen that church and temple are named in one
breath, and may be fairly inferred adjacent. On the other
hand, the expression " locus es Sakhra " does not neces-
sarily mean the same as " es Sakhra " by itself, and it is
quite within credibility that the premises of the Sakhra
might be abandoned to defilement, whilst the Sakhra was
built around, and preserved intact. The Temple that was
demolished was no doubt that in which the image of Jupiter
was put by Hadrian. The suspicion, however, gathers inten-
sity that there was some kind of Christian establishment at
that time upon the spot in the heart of the town, where
there now stands the Church of the 'Holy Sepulchre. It
may have been on no scale, but sufficient to affix import-
ance to the locality. The section of Christians likely to
occupy that situation would be the Nazarenes, who were
objects of aversion to the Romans. Whether the cross was
discovered here by Helena, and Constantine, learning the
topography, disregarded, the site as he appears to have done
for his Basilica, and placed it on the Haram instead, are
alike uncertainties. But at the time of Helena's visit the
Arians were probably in occupation, having succeeded the
Nazarenes, and the empress was under their control, and
imbued with Arian sympathies. Arius himself may have
been more unguarded than erring, but Blunt ("Die. of Sects")

observes : " If Arianism be true, Jesus Christ was not God.
It necessarily leads to an open denial of the divinity of our
Lord." There are no grounds for considering either Con-
stantino's or the empress's letter spurious, and the contents
amply account for his own interference with and taking in
his own peremptory care the building of the Church of the
Anastasis. They are as follows :

" To Victorious Triumphant Eternal August Son Con-
stantino, Helen Eternal August.

'' Wise reason does not reject truth, nor truly right faith
ever sustain any damage. Therefore about to be deemed
accepted by divine goodness, because you have been held ap-
proved who have receded from the vanity of idols ; but about
to lend yourself to error ; because you have believed Jesus
Christ to be true God, and this Son of God to be in the
heavens, who a Jew, and on account of the theology of
the Magians was condemned, and by sentence pronounced,
of suffering the Cross, died. But to your piety so far was
success accorded, because you first among emperors dis-
placed the idols. For the true and eternal God wishing to
show those whom you have denied^ to be no true gods, has
granted you health, by which having laid aside all fear of idols
you can know, because neither asked can they confer safety
or irritated take away any. Weakness has left thy vanish^
ing reverence the error of this superstition ; now virtue will
attend thee returning to the omnipotent God, who never
could be overcome. Which beginning to worship, you will
obtain the Kingdom of David and of wise Solomon. For
there are about to be with thee prophets to whom God spake,
and whatever you will ask through them you will obtain.^'

Constantino's reply was :

" To Lady Eternal August Helen Mother, Son Constan-
tine Eternal August.

" God who of all ages is ruler, who governs, directs and
vivifies us all, throufrh whose favour it is He bestows life
and breath, and to all princes has deigned to entrust that
they may give their rights to men. As therefore we have
eminence among men, so far human hope centres on us.
Therefore the eyes of all, the wills of all, what to us be-
seems, they incline to do ; what we do not smile at, they
siiun. Wherefore, Lady Eternal August, not only ii'repre-
hensible but also commendable appears our pleasure ; and
really think nothing honest we do not wish. But what I
have said is placed in our dispositions, but to know God is
beyond our insight of mind. Wherefore cease the opposing
of our rashness. But rather let the bishops of the Jews
assemble into one, we ourselves hearing, and concerning
these things dispute among themselves, that by their objec-
tions and arguments we may prevail to know the evidence
and certainty of the true faith. For thus from Holy Scrip-
tures we can, they and us, concerning the truth become
assured, and encourage the whole world to right and firm
faith. Adieu, Lady Mother Eternal August, florid with
happy events."

The instructions given in Constantine's own words relate
to a basilica at Jerusalem. Originally basilicas were halls
of audience and justice, and the form, as accommodating a
large number of people, was early adopted for Christian
churches. A very good idea of what a basilica of those
days was, can be formed from the longitudinal section of
the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, which has been
preserved, and is a work of Constantine's. If tlie Emperor's

orders were carried out, the Basilica of the Resurrection
must have been a still more iiiaposing structure. Sozomen
says: *Vept iravja rov rrjf; avaaTaaea)<; ^(^wpov, Kai tov ■)(^pavLov
^L6KoajuL7]aa. There was also a curious tradition, Chrysostom
mentions, that Adam died in the place of a skull, and lies
there. He cites Zech. xii. 10. But the authority for what
Constantino actually built is Eusebius, who was a contem-
porary of the Emperor. His writings are important, be-
cause they are almost the onl}^ testimony we have, except
such as can be drawn from the architectural character of
any surviving remains. Much difficulty has been raised in
the interpretation, as is to be expected when an author
without technical knowledge undertakes to describe a group
of buildings, without plans, in a distant country. The
account given by Eusebus is however so critically important
that an interlinear translation of Vita c, 33 — 40, is for the
first time brought forward :

Kau Se Kar avro to atOTrjpiov fzapTvptov tj

And indeed round that the Saviour's place of witness the
vr}a. Kare^KEva^eTO lepovaaX-Tj/ju avr lit po a cotton tt? irdkau
new Jerusalem was built oppositely faced to the old
^owrjixevi^j i] fiera rrjv KvpioicTOvov fjiaiai^oviav

famed one which after the Lord's execution, slaughter pol-
€p7]fjiia^ eTT eo-^aro. TTepLTpairetaaj hiKr]V erio-e
luted desolation to last degree experienced the penalty paid
^vpael3a)v oCKrjtopcov } Tavrrj Se ovv avTL')(pv<^

of the impious inhabitants ; to this then therefore opposite,
fiaaiXev^ rrjv Kara tov OavaTov acoTijpLov viKrjv TrXovaiai^
the king, over death the Saviour's victory with

Kai haylriXeaLv avv^ov ^CkoTLp.iai^ '^^X^ '^^^ TavT7}v
rich and copious honours raised ; rapidly where that

( vaav T}]v Sea 7rpo(l)riTLKcov Oecnrccr/jLaTcou KeKijpvyfievrjv

was which by the divine Prophets had been proclaimed,
KaLvr}v Kat veav lepovaaXrjjjb t;? irept jxaKpoi Xoyoi

fresh and new Jerusalem, which concerning long accounts,
fivpia 8L6c6eov Trvevixajo^ Oeairi^ovre^;

a thousand things by the divine spirit prophesying,
avvjjbvovai. KaL Br} rov iravro^ w^irep TLva KeSaXrjv
celebrated. And indeed of all as if in a sort the head,
TTpcoTOV airavTcou to lepov avrpov eKoa/iec, fjuvrjixa

first of all the Sacred Cave he adorns, the sepulchre
6K6LV0 OeGTrecTLov Trap co (pco<i e^aaTpaiTTcov Trore

SO divine beside which light glancing, formerly

ayyeXof; ttjv Sea top acoTTjpc^ evBuKvvixevrjv TraXi'yyevecnav
the angel that by the Saviour declared new generation

T0i9 TVaCTiV eV7]ry<yeXL^€T0.

to all announced.
TovTO pbev ovv TrpooTov coaavec rov Ttavro^; fce(l>a\7)Vf
This then therefore first, as if of all the head,
e^acperoL'i Kcoac, Koa/xco t6 irXetaTCi)

with selected columns, and with the greatest taste
KaTeiTOLKiXKev tj PaaiXeco^ (j)L\oTtfjLLa Travrotoi^

was varied by the royal munificence with manifold orna-
KaWcoTncr/uiaaL fcaTacj^aiSpwouaai Aif.^aive 8 ef?;?

mentS) making it resplendent. And one crossed next,
€7rt, TrafJLfjie'yedrj %wpoz^ ei9 fcaOapov aiOpiov avaireiTTafxevov
over a very great area,anto a clean court open to the skies,
ov he Xc6o<; Xajxirpo^ KareaTpccfJievo^ eir eBacpov^i
and which a brilliant stone distributed about thepaving-
eKoapLei. ixaKpoL^ TrepiBpopLot^ cttocov €K rpi-

stones decked, with long rounds o£ corridors from three
TrXevpov it ep 16^(0 [xevov.
sides surrounded.

o — Z

To) fyap KaravTiKpv irXevpco rov avrpou o 3e 7Tpo<i

For on the opposite side of the cave, and that to
avia')(0V7a rfkiov ecopa o paaCkev^ o-vvrjirro veo)<;
the rising sun which looks, the king connected the Temple,
epyov e^aiaiov et? u^cro? aireipov ijpfievov /xrjKov^; t6
a work to an untried heiofht elevated, heis^hts and
KM TrXarou? ein irXeiaTov evpvvofievov ov Ta [lev eiorco t7}<^
also widths to the farthest, extended : whose interior
oiKo'^ojjbia<; v\7]<; /jLap/xapov iroiKikr}'^ 3i€Ka\v7TTOV

structural material, with variegated marble they concealed,

ir\aKco(T6L<^ 7] Se €kto<; tmv toij^^wv ocj^t^ ^earo)

plating it over, and the outer surface of the walls with
Xl6oo rai^ Trpo? efcaajov apfioyat^ (Tuvrj/jbiiieva) XajbLTrpvvo/nevT]
dressed stone, each to each, in bond adapted, resplendent,
V7r6p(j)ije^ TL ')(pr)fjia KaWov^ rr]^ etc fjiap/jiapov irpoaoyjreco';
admirable as a work, the fair aspect of a marble surface

ovBev aiTodeov, Trapay^ev.
wanting not, stood forth.

Avo) Se 7r/309 auroL<; opofj)Ot<; ra jxev ekto<; SoofJiaTa
And above over those roofs, the domes that were outside
IxoXvjSov TTepce^paTTev vXr) o/JL/3poov aa(j)a\€<^ epv/xa
also, with lead he protected ; a material, a safe preservative,
')(eifjiepiwv Ta Se t?;? etaw orreyrj^i y\v(f)ai<;

from wintry rains. And the interiors of the roof, with

(parvcofiarcov aTrrjpTLCTjJieva, /cat, cocnrep n /aeya
carvings of the framings, was filled, and as some great
TreXayo'; Ka6^ oXov tcu jSaatXetou olkov avve)(^C(7L Tai^
sea down the whole of the royal house, with panels
7rp09 aXX7]Xa<; avfJL'JTXoKai<; avevpevvofieva %pfO"(W

connected to each other again and again traced, and with

76 hiavyei Bl oXcv KeKaXviJifxevaj (j)COTo<; oia

burnished gold entirely covered, of light as with the

/jLap/jLapoyaL<; rov Travra vecou e^acnpainetv eiroiei.
scintillations, the whole Temple he made to sparkle.

AfM(pt> 8' efcarepa ra irXevpa Slttcov arooov avayetouv
And round each of the sides of the two corridors above,
re Kai KaTa'yeiwv hthvpiOL 7rapo.aTa^€<^j too /nrj/cec rov
and also below ground, double porticos, to the height of

vecD avv6^6T€LvovTo ')(pya(o Kai aurac tov<; opo(j)ov<i

the Temple alike extended ; and with gold their roofs were
ireTTOLKiKfjbevai, cov ai fxev eiri irpoacoiTov rov olkov

dotted, of them some on the front of the buildinor

KLoai TrafifieyeOeatv eirrjpeihovTOj at Betaco twv

by grand columns were supported, and those within in
efjLTTpoaOev viro 'iTe(T(Toi<; aveyecpovro ttoXuv top

front of these under soft gravel were built up much of the

e^codev TTepiOelSXTjfievoL^ Koaixov. TIvKai. he

exterior ornament on those (columns) so girt. And gates
T/oet? 7r/?09 auTOv avicr^ovTa ifKiov ev hiaKeifjuevai ra irXtjOrj
three to the rising sun well disposed, the crowds
Toov ecaco (pepo/jievcov VTreSe^^^ovTo.
of those borne within, regulated.

TovTcou havTLKpv TO K€(paXaiov rov iravTo^ rjiiKK^aipiov 7]v
And opposite these the head of all was the hemisphere,
eiraKpov tov jSaatXecov eicTeTafievov o he

from the extremity of the Basilica led off; and this
hvo Kai Befca Kcope<; eaTe(j)avovv toi<^ tov acoTT]po<^

twelve columns " adorned, to the apostles of the
airoaToXoL^; iaapLOjioL KpaTTjpac fxeyiaTOt'^ ef apyupov

Saviour, equal in number, with great capitals made
7re7roLTj/jL€voL<; Ta<; Kopv(j)a<; Kocrfiov/jievot ou? Be ^aaiXevf;
of silver, their heads ornamented, and which the kinor
avTo^ avady/jLa KaXXiGTov eiroLeLTO tco avTov Oeco.
himself made a beautiful offerino: to his God.

EvOev he TrpoLovjcov ein ra^; irpo rov veco

And of those proceeding within at the approaches lying
KeijJLeva^; etaoBov^ aiOpiov hiekajxPavev rjaav he evravOoi Trap
before the Temple, a court intervened and were there near

eKarepa nai avXrj Trpcorr] cnoau t eiri Tavrrj

each other also the first hall and corridors against this,
Kai, eiTi iracriv ac avXetoL irvXac fied' a? evr' avTr]<;

and for all the entrance gates. After which, in the
/uLe(T7j<; 7r\aTeLa<^ ayopa<; ra tov iravro^i

midst of the street of the market itself, the places before

TTpo irvKaia (^ikoKoKw^ rjG-Krjjjbevaj tol<; ttjv eKTo<;
the gates of the whole suitably planned, to those entering
TTopeiav 17010V (lev oi<^ KarairkriKi iK,'r)v 'TTapei')(ov rr/i' twv evhov
from without, striking exhibited, the prospect of
opcofievoov Oeav
those things visible within.

Such is the description of the buildings actually erected
in the Haram area by Constantino that Eusebius gives. The
interlinear translation requires and allows the meanings,
rather ruggedly disposed, to be corrected as far as accuracy
demands, and the Greek is more satisfactory than the more
rounded periods and necessarily foregone conclusion of the
Latin version. Briefly, Constantino raised a New Jerusalem
opposite the old guilty site, and began by decorating the
Sacred Cave with columns and ornaments. Before the
Cave was a very large open space, and beyond a paved
court open to the skies surrounded on three sides by long
colonnades. This open space was evidently to west of the
Cave, and not, as hitherto supposed, at the Golden Gate ;
because on the opposite and eastern side the Emperor
connected the Cave with the Basilica, whose dimensions
were very large, the outside of ashlar, and the inte-

rior covered with variegated marble. The roof of a basilica
would properly be of wood. There is no mention of timber
in the description ; so that the roof may have resembled
the vaulting of the Golden Gate, and any domes were
covered with lead. The expanse of the roof was in panels,
like a vast sea, and highly gilt. This certainly suggests a
modern roof with a flat pitch. There were side corridors in
two stories, with porticoes the same height as the Basilica,
their roof covered with ornament. Some of the ornamental
roofs were supported by grand columns, the others by
underground columns, while there were on the east three
gates to regulate the crowd. Opposite these gates, leading
off from the top end of the Basilica, was the hemisphere of
twelve columns with silver capitals, the offering of Constan-
tine himself. Between the entrance-gates and the Basilica
a court intervened. There was first a hall^ then against
this corridors, and lastly came the gates. After which the
pavements before the gates were skilfully set out in the
middle of the thoroughfare of the market, and from the
" propuleia " there was a striking view of the magnificence
within. It is difficult to make more of these chapters of
Eusebius than the sketch. The fortieth chapter of Eusebius
distinctly states that the Emperor constructed this temple,
the " white stone Marturion," as testimony of the Saviour's
resurrection. Whatever may have been the intention, the
Sacred Cave, although it may have been covered with a
hemispherical dome, was only adorned with columns.
Eusebius would scarcely have quoted the instructions to
Macarius, or have followed this with such an imperfect
description if he had ever seen the completed buildings.
They agree in so far as this, that the orders are for a
" Basilica et reliqua membra," and it was only the Basilica

and its members that were erected. Eusebius when writing
had no doubt access to information, and was guided in a
literary way by this, so as to avoid decided inaccuracy ;
but the absence of local knowledge has caused the twentj^-
ninth chapter to differ from the letter to Macarius which
immediately succeeds. For Eusebius says, that the Empe-
ror forthwith directs a solid structure to be built of sacred
model, with ample and regal magnificence, round the Cave
of Salvation ; olkov ev/crypiov deoTrpeirr) aiKpi to awTrjpLop
avTpov eyKeXeverat irXovaia kul ^aaCkiKr) 8ei./iaa6ac TroXvTe-
\€ia ; but when the only letter which exists is examined,
it is not clear whether this sentence refers to some such
edifice as the Dome of the Rock, or to the Basilica and its
appurtenances, which was really put up.

The probability is that the Emperor originall}? proposed
to erect a basilica, with a chapel all in one over the Cave ;
but that the Empress and those about her prevented the
scheme being carried out in its original conception. The
Basilica was placed near, but clear of the Cave, and a
hemispherical colonnade, a pavement, and columnar decora-
tions were erected actually round the sacred rock. In a
sense, the whole group was around the Cave. But as there
is the evidence of a strong party in Jerusalem at the time,
it is unlikely that their opinions would not find some ex-
pression in the case of buildings whose sites comprised
the points round which controversy revolved. After cen-
turies are, at all events, indebted to this for the absence of
particulars regarding the conclusion of the Emperor's cor-
respondence with Helena. But there can be little question
that the rock which contained the Cave was adorned by
Constantino ; and whether the building about it took the
form of a circular colonnade of a kind seldom met with, or

of a hemispherical dome over a set of twelve columns,
depends very much upon the significance attached to the
word hemisphere. It makes, indeed, very little difference ;
because if the Basilica of Constantino were in the Haram
area, the nucleus of a building must have been placed by
him, where the Dome of tlie Kock now stands.

As an example of the style in which the Basilica was
built, we have the church at Bethlehem, an undoubted
work of Constantino's time, to which to refer. The longi-
tudinal section given by De Vogue contains a cave under
the transept, suggestive, but at the same time inapplicable
to the Basilica. The plan is a compromise between Byzan-
tine and Latin features^ and the low double rows of columns
which support the clerestory upon a horizontal architrave
specially draw attention, as the same trabeate construction
is followed in the Dome of the Bock. So with the semi-
circular window heads.

The Basilica at Jerusalem bore a considerable resem-
blance, it may be supposed, to the church at Bethlehem.
According to the scanty description of Eusebius it must
have been more beautiful, coated with coloured marble
inside, and its freshly dressed stone almost marble-white
on the exterior. But the site was the sloping side of a hill,
and the building lying right athwart the slope required to
be adapted to its position. We have corridors on each side
with a means of ascent to the main floor no doubt, and at
their extremities double-storied porticoes, whose roofs
were carried on grand columns; and inside were built
under what seems to be concrete.

The Golden Gate must be the principal entrance of the
new city, though outworks and a row of arches built into
the Haram Wall are still unexplored and unexplained. If

tlie Ordnance Survey Photographs (Captain Wilson's) are
carefully examined it will be found that of the east eleva-
tion of the Golden Gate, all above the main cornice is
stonework of the same age as the Damascus Gate, 1587 (?)
A.D. The cornice is of fourth century work, wanting the
upper projecting member, and may have been reset. The
abutment of the curved cornice to north seems old work.
The south abutment has been repaired and underpinned.
There is again old work near the ground ; and two courses
of the large rusticated stones of the Haram Wall appear to
be carried along into the exposed basement of the Golden
Gate. The Haram Wall above ground does not bond with
the gate, but looks as if it were notched on. The inner or
west face will be seen to be a complete architectural com-
position; and unless a later copy, may be set down as
fourth century work, remaining as it was built. The south
side elevation has finished pilasters, and mere stone blocks
for capitals ; but most of it appears to be equally ancient
masonry. The roof, and perhaps the interior columns and
the ceiling they support, are, as De Yogue considers, of
Byzantine date, re-edifications of a dismantled portion.

There is something in the appearance of the east face to
suggest that formerly there was an upper story ; and in
the sunk condition of the structure that it was designed to
conduct from a lower to a higher level.

The Church of St. Georoje at Saloniki belonf^s to Con-
stantine's age. Its construction is similar to the Pantheon
at Rome, and the material is brick without mouldings.
Nothing can be learnt from the appearance of the building,
but a curious, though remote, correspondence subsists be-
tween the Mosaics on the interior of the Dome, beautifully
drawn by Pullan and Texier, and the group of Constan-

tine's edifices in the Haram Area as fancy combines with
Eusebius to depict them. M. Texier observes: "Quoique
la composition de I'architecture de ces tableaux soit variee,
le sujet est toujours le meme; il represente un petit
temple au millieu d'une splendide colonnade." Since Con-
stantine founded Saloniki in 326 A.D., and resided there for
two years, erecting churches and other works, this set of
mosaics may very readily have been pictorial outlines of
the project he was contemplating and had actually begun
for Jerusalem ; that is, if they are as old as the Dome.
The order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre is said to
have been instituted by the Empress Helena in 302 A.D.,
but how far their prowess aided and maintained the work
is unstated.

However, by 336 A.D., the Basilica at Jerusalem was
completed ; and the Emperor, desirous of consecrating the
building in peace, summoned the Council of Tyre to decide
the Arian controversy. Arius was received into the com-
munion of the Church, and Athanasius was banished.
Constantine died in 337 A.D., and twenty years after the
Arian philosophy was triumphant in the West. In the
East, Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, was deposed and banished.
The testimony of Cyril, who was born 315 A.D., and actu-
ally preached in the Basilica which Constantine had erected,
is very valuable. He writes. Cat. x.,

AXaXayfia fjuovov ' ein tov tvttlkov

Kareirecre ra Tei^e t?;? IepL')(Oy Kai, Sea to

there has fallen the walls of Jericho, and through the

eLireiv tov Irjaovv '^ ov /jlt] acpedyj coSe \l9o^ cttl
utterance of Jesus " there shall not be left here stone on
XlOov" TreTTTcoKev o avTifcpv^; tj/jLwv tcov lov^aicov

stone," there has fallen the opposite us Jewish

vao<; ov)^ OT 7] a7ro(j)aa(,<; tov ireaeiu ania aW
temple, not that the utterance was the cause of falling, but
OTL 7] a/xapTLa rcov Trapavouwv fyeyove tov irecretv
because the evil of transgressors was the cause of
acTia.
falling.

Here Cyril talks of the Temple of the Jews as opposite
where be was speaking. He proceeds, Cat. si. :

O yo\yo6a<; o ayto^ oiro? o virepaveajriKW^
Golgotha the sacred which had stood high above,
[xapTvpei (j)aLvofjL€vo<;, to fjLvrjfjLa tt;? aytOTrjTO<; flap-
witnesses as it appears ; the sepulchre of holiness wit-
Tvpei Kai 0 XlOc^ o /^€)(pL arjixepov Keifxevo^. Cat. xiii.
nesses ; and the stone up to this day lying.
Kat yap apvrjaojjiaL vvv ekey^ev fie ovto^ o

And were I sceptical, now would reprove me that very
yo\yo6o<; ov irKrjaiov vvv iravTe^ Trapea/xev. EXeyx^c
Golgotha not near now we all are at present. Eeprove
fie TOV aTavpov to ^v\ov to fcaTa jxiKpov evTevdev
me also the wood of the Cross, that in a short time hence
nraarj tt] oLKOVfievrj Xolttov SiaSodev. EcTTavpayOrj

to all the world, the relic was distributed. The Lord
0 KvpLc<; 6L\rj(f)a^ Ta? fxapTVpia^ opa<^ tov yoXyoOa tov tottov.
was crucified.

Then Cyril goes on to observe :

ZrjTovfiev Be yvcovat cac^co? ttov TedanTai!

We seek then to know clearly where he had been buried.

Tlie prophets reply (Isa. li. 1 ; Ecc. ii. 11 ; 1 Pet. ii. 6 ;
Iisa. xxviii. IG) :

Micrriaov tov<; \6yovTa<; on Kaia (j)avTacnav ea-TavpcdOrj.
Abhor those saying that in Q^gj he was crucified.
ei 'yap Kara (j^avraatap earavpaide eic aravpov Se
for if in effio^y he was crucified and from the cross
7] acorrjpLa Kai tj acoTrjpta (paVTaata. Cat. xiii. O 70X70^09
salvation, then salvation a phantom. Golgotha

0UT09 0 ayto^ 0 virepavecncof; Kai fJ^^XP^ aij/JLepou

so holy that had been elevated and to this day
^uLvofjievo'^ Kai Bei/cvvcov fi^XP^ ^^^ ottw? hia Xpiajov au
appearing, and showing till now how through Christ the
ireTpai eppavrjaav to fjuvrj/jia to 7t\i](JLCv ottov eTe6i]
rocks were poured on the near sepulchre where he was laid;

KaL 0 eiTiTeOei'^ tt] Ovpa \ido<i o fie^P^' aijfiepov

that was placed on the opening the very stone to this day
irapa too /uivr]/ji€L(o K€LfjL6V0<;. Cat. xiv. BeXet? Se yvcopuL
beside the tomb lying. And you wish to know

TOP TOTTov (refers to Cant. vi. 10) Kai iroOev eyrjyepTac
the place and whence the Saviour had

o acoTTjp. Aeyei ev TOi<^ Aa/jLaac tcov AafiaTcov ii, 10, Kat
been raised. It says in tlie Song of Songs and

6v T019 6^7;? (Ibid. 14). 'S'ceirrjv Trj<^ 7T6Tpa<; eiire Tr}V
in the following the cave of the rock ; it says there

Tore Trpo tt;? Ovpa^; tov acoTijpiov fJLvrjfxaTo^ cvaav
then, before the entrance of the Saviour's tomb, was

(TK67rr]v Kai e^avTr]<; tt]^ TreTpa^ KaT6(jo<^ avvrjOe^ evravOd
a cave; and always at the rock, as usually, there
fyLveadai irpo tcov fivij/juaTcop XeXa^eufievcov vvv

exists before the sepulchres hewn in stone, for now
^yap ou (j)aiv6Tai. eireibrj tote e^eKoXac^Orj to

it does not appear after once was chiselled away the
TTpoa/ceTraa/jia Sta ttjv irapovaav euKocrfnav irpo yap tt}^
envelope through the present decoration, for prior to the

^aoCKiKri^ (j)i\oTi/Jiia<; rou ixvrjfiaro^ aKenrj rjv efiTrpoaOev
royal enterprise the cave of the sepulchre was in front of
T7]^ irerpa^. AXka ttov eanu rj Trerpa rj e^ovaa ttjv
the rock. But where is the rock that contained the
crfceiTrjv apa irepi ra fiecra tt;; TroXeco? KeiTai r) irepi
cave ? Perhaps about the midst of the town it lies; ortowards

Ta T£L)(^r] fcac ra reXevreia Kat, irorepov ev rot? apyaiOL^
the walls and the suburbs ; and whether in the old
Tei')(^eaii> eaTiv 77 rct^ varepov nTpOTa')(^LafxaaL \iyei>

walls it is; or in the nether outworks; it says
TOLvvv ev TOi? AafxaaiVy ^^ ev afceiTT] t?;? Trerpa? ey^o-
accordingly in the Song of Songs.
fjLcva Tov 'TrpoTei')(L(Tp.aTo^^' (Cant. ii. 14).

" Judas eos ad ilium deduxit. Turn vero Deus speciem
Christi in Judam ipsum transtulit quare hunc abreptum
verberarunt . . . turn eum quem pro Christo habebant, in
crucem egerunt, etc., ut tradant Mattheus, etc." (Abulfoeda).
This is probably the belief of the unreflecting section of
Mohammedans.

It may be remarked (when reading Cyril, that he is
acquainted with all the sites except the Holy Sepulchre ;
and the passage above quoted shows that its identification
was as uncertain in 349 A.D. as at the present day. Cat. xv.
^' Kp^ejai he,'' says Cyril, " 0 AvTLXptaro^ Tore orav ev ro)
vao) Twv lovhaLcov \i6o<; eirc XtOov fxrj fxeivr]" The Arabic ac-
count of the buildings at Jerusalem is very scanty, but it
confirms the hesitation of Cyril. Jalal Ud Din speaks of
the '' Bab al Mukadas," consecrated house. " In tlie last
times shall be a general flight to it, and the Shekinah shall
be lifted upon high in this temple." That it is the most
beloved place. When the Greeks obtained possession of it

they built upoa it a building as broad at the base as it was
high in the sky, and gilded it with gold and silvered it
with silver. It fell. They built a second ; it fell. They
built a third ; it fell. An old man came and said : ** All
holiness has departed and been transferred to this other
place ; I will therefore point out this as the place wherein
to build the Church of the Kesurrection." He cheated
them. He commanded them to cut up the rock, and build
on the place he ordered them. Thus they demolished the
mosque, and carried away the columns and stones, and built
therewith the Church of the Resurrection. Jalal also
makes Omad say : " To return to the Sakhra, the Franks
had built a church upon it . . . adorned it with images and
candlesticks, and erected separately from the other build-
ings, a little chapel raised upon marble pillars. The Sakhra
was hidden, being covered by the buildings on it. The
Sultan commanded this coat of marble to be stripped off,
and building taken to pieces. Thus the Sakhra was re-
stored. Moreover, the Franks had cut off a piece from the
Sakhra, and had carried it to Constantinople. A piece to
the Russians."

Orientals write history in a different mode from the nar-
rative style of the West, but there is every indication here
of the Sakhra having at one time been built upon by the
Franks. That subsequently they were misled into cutting
off a portion of the Rock, demolished the mosque which
perhaps should be read Basilica, and with the columns and
stones, as Cyril hints, built in the heart of the town the
Church of the Resurrection. Meantime a body was rising
which has not been well understood, and of whose influence
little notice has been taken, in considering the question of
the Holy Places. The Nestorians were originally (see

Badger) founded by Addai and Mari of the seventy
apostles in Mesopotamia. Mari went to Cashgar and else-
where, and died in 82 A.D. One of his successors was a
relative of the Virgin Mary, and a disciple, Aha d' Abhoi,
was consecrated at Jerusalem in the Church of the Resur-
rection about 205 A.D., which shows that Constantine's
buildings were not the first Marturion.

The Nestorian community, if any, therefore, were ac-
quainted with the earliest Christian traditions. The first
germ of the persuasion under that name, however, was a
sermon preached before Nestorius in 428 A.D. He was a
Syrian, and Bishop of Constantinople. About the end of
the fourth century a singular female sect, the Collyridians,
existed in Arabia; so called from the fcoWvpa, or cake,
they dedicated to tlie Virgin. The spread of Mariolatry in
the Church is attributed to this sect, and to the invocation
of the Virgin Nestorius was opposed. He was displaced
from his bishopric 431 A.D., by the Council of Ephesus.
The publication of the Theodosian Code in 488 A.D. caused
persecutions, not of Pagans, but of Christians against
Christians. Eutyches, the Archinaandrite of Constantinople,
opposing Nestorian views, asserted that although two
natures existed in our Lord before His incarnation, after-
wards there was only one : for which about 451 A.D. the
term " Monophysite " was used.

This controversy divided the Eastern and Western
Churches. Nestorius, consequently, was cut off from both.
Nestorianism becomes important, and ceases to belong to
mere Church history. It spread in Persia, and Chosroes
and his court considered Nestorianism their established
faith. How far this maintained its purity is a theological
question ; but it may easily be imagined to have retained

its traditions. Osborn mentions, and it will be found else-
where, that when a youth Mohammed was taken, about
581 A.D.J in a caravan of merchants to Bosra in Syria, where
he was for some time under the teaching of a Nestorian
recluse. As this town, situated in the tribe of Manasseh,
beyond Jordan, is not a hundred miles away in a direct
line, there is every probability of Mohammed having at an
early period of his life personally visited Jerusalem. At all
events, for the Scriptural travesties that are to be found in
the Koran, the tuition of the Xestorians is one of the ac-
knowledged sources. It will in great measure account for
the divided allegiance paid to the Caabah at Mecca and the
Haram Area at Jerusalem ; a conflict between Arab incli-
nations and policy and correct tradition. As a matter of
fact, the Nestorians are indirectly the custodians of the
Sakhra and the Temple site at present, through the Mo-
hammedans.

Before the growth and expansion of the Mohammedans,
the Byzantine emperors continued to protect the Christian
churches and communities at Jerusalem. Sects will be
found to be numerous, differing upon abstruse and essen-
tially unimportant theories, which are as difficult to explain
completely now as then. After the Council of Chalcedon,
451 A.D., the Monophy sites separated from the Orthodox
Greek Church ; found sympathy with, and were patronised
by, the Mohammedans, to whose belief they partially ap-
proached ; and formed the sect of Copts, which is spread in
Egypt, and has a place of worship in the modern Church of
the Holy Sepulchre. They were, however, depressed in
Justinian's reign. This emperor succeeded to power 527 A.D.,
and his great aim was uniformity of public worship. The
decision of the Council of Chalcedon was favoured by the

emperor, but was in Egypt considered one in the Nesto-
rians' interest. There was an insurrection of monks in
Palestine 451 — 453 A.D., led by the Empress Eudoxia.
After tlie sixth century the Monophysites became known
as Jacobites, and were established in Egypt by the Moham-
medans, because the Orthodox or Melchite party were
representatives of the Greek Empire. The Annenians also
inclined to the Monophysite principle, and have been long
associated with the Turks.

Justinian tried and failed to unite Catholics and Mono-
physites. In the East he persuaded the Jews to acknow-
ledge Christianity, and this was evidentl}^ the origin of his
constructinof fresh buildino^s in the Haram Area. Instead
of obliging the Jews to worship in the Basilica of Constan-
tine, he endeavoured to conciliate their national prejudices,
doubtless by raising his Mary Church upon the edge of the
made ground that had been disturbed so very inauspiciously
by Julian. In a letter to Bishop Epiphanius, Justinian
wrote : " When, therefore, on a former occasion we had
found that certain aliens from the Holy Apostolic Church
had followed the deception of the impious Nestorius and
Eutyches, we promulgated our holy edict as your holiness
also knows, whereby we checked the madness of the here-
tics." The impression left by Procopius's account of the
Mary Church of Justinian^ a translation of which is given
in Williams's "Holy City," vol. ii. p. 369 et seq.y is that the
Mary Church was situated at the south-east corner of the
Haram ; and for some reason, rather imp)lied than expressed,
great expense was incurred in raising the substructurCi
But there is a curious passage to the effect : " The place,
however, being situated inland, at a distance from the
sea, and fenced off with abrupt mountains on all sidesj

as I have described, rendered it difficult for the contrivers
of the Temple to introduce columns from elsewhere. But
as the emperor was distressed at the difficulty of the task,
God showed a kind of stone in the nearest mountains well
adapted for the purpose, whether it existed and was con-
cealed previously, or was now created. In either case there
is credibility," etc.

This certainly looks as if some other building, containing
columns of the kind required for the interior of a church,
had been despoiled on this occasion ; and an emperor who
was endeavouring to place all churches on the same level
would not scruple to authorise such an expedient. It would
indeed be a great assistance in deciding upon some of the
facts of the topography of Jerusalem., if the materials of the
different buildings could be traced. It is a small place,
entirely isolated in those days from large supplies of skilled
labour, and having no roads. Therefore there was every
inducement to make any decorative materials to hand
available for a new design. The Palestine explorations
have as yet shown no spare columns or useful squared
stones, or even fragments to form part of the accumulations
that have filled the valleys in Jerusalem. Yet the stones
of the old temples and palaces of the Jews, the decorations
of the Sakhra, and the Basilica of Constantino^ and those of
Justinian's edifices, must all. exist in some shape, and have
been passed from one set of constructions to another. Jus-
tinian's church (see Tobler) was visited in 808 A.D., and was
in all its glory when Bernhard was at Jerusalem in 870 A.D.
So that it must have been for long standing by the side of
the Mosque el Aksa. Procopius mentions that Faustinus,
a man of Jewish extraction, but who for security had taken
the name of a Christian, came to be governor of Palestine

4—2

under Justinian. He was accused by the Jewish priests
for his duplicity, and for having committed cruelties against
the Christians during his government, and condemned at
Constantinople. But by degrees a good sum of money
mollified the emperor, and his credit became so great that
he had unchecked management of the Imperial domains in
Phoenicia and Palestine. Such an ally must have been a
great assistance in dealing with the Jewish population,, and
promoted an outward, but probably fallacious, uniformity.

Justinian died 565 A.D. The various forms of worship
centred at Jerusalem continued. We are now approaching
an important period, when the Mohammedan creed was
about being promulgated, and the Pope was on the eve of
acquiring temporal power. The native Syrians were to a
great extent Nestorians at this time ; and Nestorians were
opposed to the Greeks. Heraclius^ the Greek emperor,
from political motives, persecuted the Jews. So that when
Chosroes II., the head of the Nestorian community — for
Nestorianism was in 500 A.D. the established religion of
Persia — led a revolt of the Persians, and invaded Palestine,
he was accompanied by a large number of Jews, and the
attack was made by two combined parties having each
their own ground of dissatisfaction with the Greek Empire.
Finlay relates that Chosroes burnt the Church of the
Sepulchre ; Williams states that, accompanied by Jews,
he demolished the Church of Gethsemane, the Basilica of
Constantine^ the Churches of Calvary and the Holy
Sepulchre. Why the Nestorian Chosroes should permit the
destruction of the Basilica erected by Constantine, for a
purpose they of all the sects might be supposed to revere^
is involved in obscurity. But if the Jews set the Basilica
on fire, it is intelligible that the Nestorians demolished the

Monopbysite edifices of Getlisemane, Calvary, and the
Sepulclire, that owed their commencement to the Arian
party and the Empress Helena.

This period is marked in England, in a manner linking
on to our times by the founding 611 A.D. of Westminster
Abbey. But whether the churches at Jerusalem were more
than damaged on this occasion is doubtful; as Williams
states that in 937 A.D. the Mohammedans attacked the
Church of Constantine, and laid waste the Churches of Cal-
vary and the Resurrection. In 629 A.D. Heraclius retook
Jerusalem, and as he endeavoured to reunite religions it
may be conjectured that repairs of churches, as far as prac-
ticable, generally took place, and it is now we hear of
Modestus having rebuilt the Church of the Sepulchre.
Mohammedanism had now declared its principles. At Mo-
hammed's uprising, Nejd, the central province of Arabia,
under Moseylema, opposed his pretensions. It was bounded
on the north by the Byzantine Empire, on the south by
Yeman, and on the remaining land side by Persia. The
inhabitants had socialistic proclivities, and held the same
opinions which were more actively put in force subsequently
by the Ismalians and Carmathians. Moseylema was slain
at Hanefah by Kalid, after a fierce encounter^ and his sect
was dispersed, but it left Mohammed undisputed master,
and an extreme dislike of Islam in the breast of every
Arab attached to Nejd and its esoteric mysteries. -

The downfall of this seemingly obscure sect placed Mo-
hammed in an opposition that still subsists. Heraclius was
at Jerusalem celebrating the restoration of the Holy Cross,
which Chosroes had removed, and driving the Jews out of
the city, when the first hostilities between the Mussulman
and Roman troops occurred. At this time Sophronius was

head of a Greek or Melchite congregation, in the midst of
a hostile Monophysite or Jacobite population. This alone
would tend to mark the Haram Area to be his residence,
and any building of Constantine's remaining, as his church.
The last to be heard of Heraclius is when he mounted a
hill (Abulfeda Ams), and turning towards Syria, said :
" Vale Syria et ultima vale, neque enim mihi licebit dein-
ceps te invisere, neque Romano cuiquam te intrare, nisi
parenti, donea tandem nascatur inauspicatus ille infans,
quern nunquam nasci majis expediebat et optandum erat.
Tam ille Romanam rem insigniter affliget ; tantos ille tan-
que acerbos tumultus excitabit."

In 637 A.D. Omar advanced to Jerusalem. The Christian
Syrians fled to Lebanon, and their descendants are known
as Mardaiites, supposed to be the present sect of Maronites.
Ockley's account is that Omar went first to the Temple of
the Resurrection. Then Sophronius took him out from
thence into Constantine's church, but he would not pray
there. Then he went alone to the steps near the east gate
of Constantine^s church, and prayed there. Omar, leaving
the churches to the Christians, built a new temple where
Solomon's formerly stood. Notwithstanding his precau-
tions, the Saracens seized the church at Bethlehem, and so
they did St. Constantine's church at Jerusalem ; for they
took half the porch where those steps were v/hich Omar
had prayed upon, and built a mosque there, in which they
included those steps ; and had Omar said his prayers in
the body of the church they would have taken that too.
Abulfeda relates in Latin : " The Locus es Sakhra was
turned to a dunghill, but things were altered no sooner
had Omar ibn el Chattal acquired Jerusalem. For he
having been shown by somebody the place of the Temple,

ordered it first to be cleared of filth, thereupon he built
there a Mohammedan structure^ which remained uninjured
to the time of Abd el Malek, who having demolished that
building, placed on the old foundation another, which is
called the Musjid el Aksa ; for whom the Sakhra was en-
closed (cui inclusa est es Sakhra). In these no change
has taken place to our day, 1200 a.d. These are the matters
to which El Aris refers, who is responsible for the state-
ments. In which I think the destruction of the Temple of
Jerusalem he speaks about relates to that edifice which had
been built over the Sakhra": "nam Aedis illius El Mesjid
El Aksa jam in traditione sacra de adscensu prophetse nos-
tri in coelos mentio fit."

It is necessarily difficult to assign from Abulfeda's ac-
count their proper situation to churches and mosques, when
the narrator had himself such a confused idea of the real
circumstances. The whole would be consistent if the v/ords
" Locus es Sakhra" and " cui inclusa est" did not occur;
but if the terms mean that the locality or near neighbour-
hood of the Sakhra, and that part of it where the Temple
of the Jews had been built especially, and not the Sakhra
itself, was cleared by Omar ; and that he reared a mosque,
which was destroyed by Abd el Malek, so as to erect an-
other on the same foundations, the same Abd el Malek who
appropriated and roofed the Sakhra, ambiguity disappears.
Finlay wonders how Sophronius, who was a Melchite Patri-
arch, consented to become the minister of the Moham-
medans. But there is a probable cause, and Omar was
evidently averse to interfering with the Christian system,
working in harmony both in Constantine's and Justinian's
buildings on the Haram Area. There is all along: an im-
pression that the Monophysite party had separate religious

establishments, on a different site ; to which, in order to
confer the necessary sacredness, the fragments of the Sepul-
chre and perhaps a portion of the rock of Golgotha had
been conveyed. If this was not the case, the Basilica of
Constantine must have been repaired after its injury on the
occupation of Chosroes. Because Ockley asserts that the
" Sultan ordered bolts to be fixed to the Church of the
Resurrection, and pilgrimage forbidden. Some advised it
to be destroyed. The majority said that was no use ; they
adore the site of the Cross and the tomb, not the buildings."

Omar cannot be imagined to have been unaware of the
peculiar significance of the Sakhra, which has descended in
the form of floating tradition rather than in precise terms ;
he however rested content with a small mosque. It is
difficult to form an idea from Mohammedan accounts of
their reasons for venerating the Sakhra. The subject is
ably treated by Edouard Sayons, who brings out the fact
that the Mohammedans are divided on the cardinal doctrine
which is the base of the faith of Christendom. " Les com-
mentateurs," observes Sayons, "ont peine pour arranger tout
cela, mais ils sont arrives a deux solutions differentes;
d'apres les uns Jesus serait monte au ciel sans passer par le
sepulchre, d'apres les autres il aurait fait un court sejour
dans le tombeau, il y serait reste trois heures ou sept
heures."

It is generally asserted that the Sakhra derives its im-
portance from having been Mohammed's point of departure
on his night journey to the heavens ; but this explains
little, as the tale is obviously vague and allegorical. Jalal
ud Din calls the Sakhra " the halting-place of the night
journey, the resting-place of the Lord of Apostles, the resting-
place of apostles and prophets, the mansion of Abraham." The

preacher Kudi Moh is quoted as having said : "This is the
spot from which your prophet ascended to heaven, this is
the Kiblah, this is the reposing-spot of the prophets, this
is the burial-place of the apostles^ here descended the reve-
lation, upon this land will take place the resurrection ;" and
uttered a prayer, " that as entrance had been given into
the consecrated Temple, they might be given entrance into
the remaining parts of the land, and be made masters of
the fortunes of the infidels and of their chieftains." The
Arab song runs :

" Great is my love ;
If my love were in the Sakhra,
That great and wonderful
Rock the Sakhra,
It would be broken
Into a thousand pieces."

The history of Islam at this time becomes very much
involved, and is the more difficult to unravel^ because Mo-
hammedanism is usually regarded as a unified system.
Abu Sophian had long been the inveterate enemy of Mo-
hammed, and 661 A.D. his son Moawiyah ascended the throne
established by the prophet^ and transferred the seat of
government to Damascus. The Caliph Ali perished in the
conflict, and the Suni Mohammedans gained the upper
hand. The overthrown sect appears to have included
opinions which afterwards were developed into those of the
Ismaliens. According to them an Imam must belong to
the house of Ali ; the world is never without an Imam, but
he is not always visible. When visible, the doctrine is
concealed ; when hid, missionary labours begin ; Prophets
reveal. Imams interpret. In 684 A.D. Abd el Malek, the
Ommyad, succeeded to the Caliphate at Damascus. There
were four aspiring parties in the Mohammedan world at

the time, and tbe principal opponent was Abdalla ibn
Tobeir, grandson of the Caliph Abu Bekr, and nephew of
the favourite wife of the prophet. It is related by Ockley,
that Abdalla holding out at Mecca, " Abd el Malek enlarged
the Temple of Jerusalem so as to take the stone into the
body of the church, and the people began to make their
pilgrimage thither."

The plan of the Aksa suggests that it was an enlarge-
ment of the mosque at the south wall built by the Caliph
Omar, and the longitudinal section given by De Vogue, that
the constructor had been guided by recollection, at all
events, of the Basilica of Constantine, the flat architraves
of which were conveniently replaced by Gothic arches.
But the Aksa might have been quite independent of altera-
tions of Constantine's remaining buildings, then probably
verging on a ruinous state ; and to promote the objects of
pilgrimage he may have, as the Cufic inscription in the
Cubbet es Sakhra asserts, " built this dome in the year 72 "
(691 A.D.), independently of the Mosque el Aksa. Before
the time of Abd el Malek, the Ommeyide Caliphs employed
a divan of Syrians to conduct public business, and the
records were in Greek. Arab officials and the i^.rabic lan-
giiage were his introduction, which will account for the
subversion of the system that had been allowed to be per-
petuated under Omar and Moawiyah. To some extent a
divided Islam was due to the separate derivation of the
Arabian tribes. The Koreish, to which Mohammed be-
longed, were descended from Ishmael ; but there was another
race of Arabs deriving their descent from an older Semitic
stock, the Joktan Arabs ; and the latter were the ruling
masses at Damascus. The Caliph Abd el Malek died 705.
At this period the Mohammedans had, it is probable, appro-

priated the Dome of the Rock, but allowed the peaceable
occupation of Justinian's buildings, and any of the Basilica
that was tenan table, as well as such establishments as the
Christian community possessed in the heart of the town.

It was under the Fatimite dynasty that this toleration
was first disturbed. About 900 A.D. Abou Abdallah was
the Ismalien missionary for the son of the seventh concealed
Imam. By giving himself out as the precursor of the
" Mehdi," or Mohammedan " expected one," he was instru-
mental in the conquest of Kairwan in Northern Africa;
and the result was the defeat of the native race and subjec-
tion of Egypt successively to Al Moer and the Caliph
Hakim. The possession of Egypt by the Fatimites was,
however, to be disputed by a sect founded on the principles
of Abdallah, the fourth concealed Imam of the Ismalian
line. He cast aside all theological beliefs, and rested human
life and society on a basis of materialism. Carmath was a
missionary of the sect who have been styled Carmathians.
They increased in power and audacity, and in 937 A.D.
sacked Mecca, tore up the pavement of the Kaaba, and split
the black stone. No Moslems before or since have so greatly
outraged Islam ; but about the close of the century they
were driven to the shores of the Persian Gulf, " a district,"
as GifFord Palgrave says^ " a heap of exoteric doctrines."
" The Wahabee reigns supreme there, but the Carmathian
reaction burns sccretl}^ on^ and waits but an occasion to
break out afresh into a blaze sufficient to consume perhaps
for the last time the superstructure of Wahabeeism and
Islam."

An attack of the Mohammedans is recorded at this time
by Williams upon the Christian edifices in Jerusalem. The
Carmathian seizure of Mecca made it more than ever neces-

sary to render tlie centre of pilgrimage in Palestine attrac-
tive, and whether they injured the Church of Constantine,
and laid waste tlie Churches of Calvary and the Resurrec-
tion or not, we may be tolerably certain that at this time
the Christians were rigidly excluded from the Haram Area.
The belief of the Fatimites was that it was not enough for
the Mohammedan world to have an infallible book, but
there must be an infallible interpreter ; and this is a know-
ledge w^hich can only be inherited by right of blood from
the Prophet. " It was/' remarks Osborn, " under the
Khalifate of Hakem, the grandson of the conqueror of
Egypt, that these doctrines attained their fullest ex-
pansion." Utterly convinced of his own impeccability,
he indulged every fantastic whim. But Hakem organised
the constitution of his sect, and held " Conferences of Wis-
dom" in the palace. It is singular that at the present
moment the Druses of the Lebanon regard El Hakem as
their incarnate prophet, and believe that he will appear
again. The Druses oppose the Turks, but incline to the
Shiite faction, differing from them by their allegorical in-
terpretation of the Koran.

In 996 A.D. El Hakem, nephew of the Patriarch of Jeru-
salem on the mother's side (De Vogud), incited by the Jews,
demolished the Christian buildings. Lord Carnarvon states
that the reason of Hakem's attack was rage at the informa-
tion brought to him of the Greek fire, and the chain on which,
oil being poured, the flame rose in the Church of the Sepul-
chre. It would appear that Justinian's buildings had
already been destroyed, no doubt to effectually dislodge
Latin Christianity from the Haram Area; so that the
edifices most obnoxious to El Hakem's interference were
the Dome of the Rock and the group of churches in the

heart of the town; unless, indeed, Oonstantine's Basilica
was used for the Greek fire. But it is to be gathered from
such fragmentary accounts as exist, that the churches in the
town were those attacked. For the Jews must have ob-
served that these were the only link attaching the Chris-
tians to the Holy City. Hakem about one year afterwards
restored the materials, and tolerated the Christians.

The present Church of the Holy Sepulchre was recon-
structed by Greek architects in 1048 A.D., to become even-
tually the Crusaders' Church. The severe exactions of the
Mohammedans furnished a pretext for the First Crusade ;
Jerusalem was taken 1099 A.D. ; and, says De Vogue, " After
their final victory the Crusaders onl}^ found in the Holy City
the Church of the Resurrection, the Latin Convent of St.
Mary, and the Basilica of Bethlehem. But there were other
buildings, for Addison states that when the Crusaders came
in 1099 A.D. they tore down the crescent from the Dome of
the Rock, and put up a massive Cross. Isac. De Vibi,
Hist. Hier., mentions that the Saracens held this building in
such veneration that none dared to defile it. William of
Tyre also speaks of the Octagonal Temple. The rock was
left uncovered for fifteen years, after which the Crusaders
cased it with an altar, on which priests officiated. The order
of the Templars were now on Mount Moriah, their church
was the Cubbet es Sakhra, their banner was a Lamb, and
they lodged in the Mosque el Aksa. The entry of Baldwin
is described by Guizot. In the morning the clergy and the
king went to the Temple of the Lord, where Solomon's
wisdom had been promised. The Greeks and the Syrians
remained in the monument of the Holy Sepulchre. "Our
people having prayed, returned to the Church of the
Sepulchre."

In the eleventh century another body of Christians had
settled near this church, who in 1130 A.D. became the mili-
tary order of the Knights Hospitallers. Much about this
time these very knights were presumably the Crusaders
who are said to have reunited in one monument all the old
isolated Christian sanctuaries, with evident reference to the
churches in the heart of the town alone. In 1187 A.D.
Saladin chased the Francs from Jerusalem, and only spared
the Churches of the Holy Sepulchre, Josaphat, and Bethle-
hem ; converting the rest to mosques or destroying them.

The disposition of the Saracen mind at the time is well
illustrated by a sermon preached by a Mohammedan priest
on Moriah upon Saladin's capture of Jerusalem, 1187 A.u.
Extract : " Praise be to God, Who hath glorified Islamism ;
by His power hath debased Polytheism ; I praise Him for
having purified the polluted house from the impieties of
Polytheism. Oh, men, publish the blessing, recapture and
deliverance of this city which we had lost, and has made
it the centre of Islamism after having been during one
hundred years in the hands of the infidels. This house was
built and its foundations laid for the glory of God and in
the fear of heaven. For this liouse is the dwelling of Abra-
ham; the ladder of your Prophet; the Kiblah to which you
prayed at the commandment of Islamism ; the abode of
prophets ; the aim of saints ; the place of revelation ; the
habitation of order and defence. It was in this mosque that
Mohammed prayed. It was this city to which God sent
His servant^ his messenger, the word which He sent to
Mary," etc.

The Crusades were the cause of the temporary eclipse of
the Greek Empire by the Latin. Baldwin took Constan-
tinople in 1204 A.D., and in 1229 A.D. Jerusalem was again

occupied by the Crusaders, representing a Latin dynasty ;
and who appear to have made slight restorations of the
buildings. The treaty made on this occasion by Frederick,
grandson of Barbarossa, with the Syrian Sultan, lasted ten
years. It was broken, and the Mohammedans, who seem all
the time to have reserved the Dome of the Rock for them-
selves, regained ascendancy. A fresh treaty, made in 1240
A.D., only lasted two years. Again in 1243 A.D. the Templars
retook Jerusalem, but the Charesmians, flying before the
Mogul power of Central Asia, overran Syria and Palestine;
and in 1244 A.D. made themselves masters of the Holy City.
The Charesmians probably reduced the Haram to a state of
disrepair, and damaged the Christian churches.

St. Louis, King of France, was at Jerusalem in 1252 A.D.,
and resided there for four years, effecting nothing of mo-
ment. The Christians were always divided among them-
selves, the knights were moved to Ehodes and Malta, and
Jerusalem became an easy prey, with the rest of Syria, to
the Turks. The invention of firearms altered the conditions
of defence, the Greek fires were completely paled, and in
1453 A.D., a memorable year, Mohammed II. took Constan-
tinople, and the Turkish power assumed guard over the
Haram Area.

A. T. Fraser*

December 6, 1880.

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS AND ELECTROTVPERS, OUILDFCIRD'.

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